Hacker Read top | best | new | newcomments | leaders | about | bookmarklet login

Because it IS already an issue.

For example when CIA/NSA tools leaked, one of them had precisely this purpose.



sort by: page size:

It's to keep sensitive information from falling into the wrong hands.

Why?

Did they want to protect themselves before alerting anyone?

Did they want to use this to infiltrate others?


In theory it's to reduce information for bad actors, but we know in practice it never really works this way.

Don't send people on a goose chase because you're obscuring details for "security."


To convince congress to legislate a backdoor.

There are very logical and reasonable reasons for them to advocate publicly. Not everything is a conspiracy.


"in the interest of the security of sources", if true, is actually a pretty good reason.

To prevent examination of secret stuff like surveillance, backdoors, etc.

"If you don't know what the product is, the product is you."


To publicize the fact that these sort of attacks can be tracked. Similar to when they publish information about particularly crafty drug houses they bust: so that people planning on building a drug house think "well, if they got that house, then they'll definitely find out the one I'm planning, so maybe I'd better not."

To obfuscate whatever is going to happen :)

Probably to make it safe/inoffensive as a tool for companies to use.

Because it would take about 5 minutes for people to figure out how to use that for nefarious purposes.

Potentially the purpose is that if someone goes to the effort to get those details together, they are more likely to send the same report to other trusted individuals. Maybe it was originally there to add legitimacy, then they got a report sent in, and removed it to slow the spread of awareness

So that actual bad guys don't get it and use it for what could be incredibly sophisticated and damaging things.

Because it’s unnecessary and brings outside influences that could corrupt it’s stated goals

Also so the maintainer can't stealth-censor the model.

Because it is likely to enable us to go further us down the path to 1984.

Fucking with people's lives is something that should be done by a human that can see the bigger picture, not a bunch of code daisy chained together.


My guess would be to get users to be more open to sharing this type of information, but of course we may never know why they made that decision.

maybe because they can be used for many nefarious purposes?

The motivation? It clearly has roots somewhere in the cypherpunk crew, which was already obsessed with privacy, secrecy, etc.

I expect the idea is less to prevent any possible threat and is more a) to comply with regulations and b) to log enough data so if somebody does circumvent your legally required measures, they've left enough of a trail to hang themselves.
next

Legal | privacy